Hutchinson lifted his head and looked at her.
“Eh, Ann,” he said, “you are a comfortable little body. You've got a way with you just like your poor mother had. You always say the right thing to help a chap pull himself together. Your mother did believe in it, didn't she?”
She had, indeed, believed in it, though her faith was founded more upon confidence in “Mr. Hutchinson” than in any profound knowledge of the mechanical appliance his inspiration would supply. She knew it had something important to do with locomotive engines, and she knew that if railroad magnates would condescend to consider it, her husband was sure that fortune would flow in. She had lived with the “invention,” as it was respectfully called, for years.
“That she did,” answered Little Ann. “And before she died she said to me: 'Little Ann,' she said, 'there's one thing you must never let your father do. You must never let him begin not to believe in his invention. Your father's a clever man, and it's a clever invention, and it'll make his fortune yet. You must remind him how I believed in it and how sure I was.'”
Hutchinson rubbed his hands thoughtfully. He had heard this before, but it did him good to hear it again.
“She said that, did she?” he found vague comfort in saying. “She said that?”
“Yes, she did, Father. It was the very day before she died.”
“Well, she never said anything she hadn't thought out,” he said in slow retrospection. “And she had a good head of her own. Eh, she was a wonderful woman, she was, for sticking to things. That was th' Lancashire in her. Lancashire folks knows their own minds.”
“Mother knew hers,” said Ann. “And she always said you knew yours. Come and sit in your own chair, Father, and have your paper.”
She had tided him past the worst currents without letting him slip into them.